carter grant, super sleuth

The sun lamps are at full power and Alex hopes that will be enough.

Kara looks small and pale and fragile, though she is anything but, laying on that large table with the lamps shutting her in. There is a stinging scrape down one side of her—her right thigh and knee, from her wrist to her elbow, and across her chin—and though it had been red and then more red, inflamed, it has scabbed over brown and, here and there where the damage wasn’t that bad, a healthy pink.

Alex swallows roughly. She knows what it means that Kara hasn’t healed instantly—it’s good that she’s not broken into pieces, the last of her powers must’ve been used up when she’d landed and Alex thanks every god she knows the name of that she had enough to survive, but she hasn’t woken up and it’s been days and she’s scared.

She hurts too—her head still hurts, she can still hear the ringing in her ears though it has long since stopped—and she lowers her head down onto the table,  slips her hand into Kara’s.

“C’mon, Kara,” she whispers, and shifts, moves her forehead to rest on Kara’s wrist instead and she pretends the thumping in her head is Kara’s strong, steady pulse.

//

Alex has lived for days in something at feels like half dream, half nightmare, so when she hears her name she’s ashamed to say she doesn’t respond immediately.

“-lex,” a voice croaks.

The fingers in hers—twitch. Other fingers brush at the hair fallen across her face. “Alex. Your thick skull, s’giving me pins ’n’ needles,” that sweet, sweet, totally cracked voice says, and Alex peels open heavy eyelids and, with a clumsy hand, pushes away one of the lamps so she can lean up, away, and check. Make sure. She can’t take it if it’s just a dream again but god, god there she is, her little sister, looking up at her with tears streaked down her temples into her hairline and Alex pushes up onto her feet and bends over her to press a kiss, achingly soft, to her forehead.

“Don’t you ever do something like that again, do you hear me?” she whispers, helping Kara to sit up a little so they can hug. Kara feels weak and slow and soft but her arms wrap around Alex and hold her loosely. She doesn’t reply—both of them know that something like this might well happen again. “Mom would kill me.”

Kara laughs—coughs, swallows, continues to laugh. “How bad?”

“She’s been cleaning,” Alex tells her and she rolls her eyes. She lifts a hand and wipes at Kara’s cheek, brushing away a tear. “Kara,” she says, voice approaching awe and it’s enough to make Kara’s fragile smile crack. Her laugh turns into a sniff and she grips the back of Alex’s shirt as tight as she can, weak utterly human fingers barely managing to grip. She cries hot tears into her shoulder as Alex strokes up and down her back, murmuring soothing nothings.

“Hey hey hey, it’s alright, it’s okay Kara. Everyone’s safe, you’re alright, you’re safe.” Kara grips more tightly. “You did it,” she murmurs, turning a little to cradle the back of Kara’s head and her other arm stops stroking to just hold her tight and Kara sobs once. “You did so great, Kara, it’s okay, everything is okay.”

“E-everyone? They’re all safe?” Kara asks when she can stop the tears. “Winn? And James? Lucy—and mom?” She swallows. “Cat and Carter?”

“They’re all okay,” Alex nods.

“And J’onn?” Kara remembers, and she tries to swing her legs off the edge of the table. It’s strange for both of them when Alex can hold her in place with a hand on her thigh and seemingly zero effort.

“He’s fine too. But you need to rest.”

Kara sags, lets herself be pushed down onto the table. She traces a wondering hand over the scrape on her chin, winces a little but doesn’t stop. It’s lumpy and sore and so, so strange for her. A girl who never once scraped her knee on the playground.

“I carried it into space,” Kara remembers and she grins, wide and sleepy. “That’s pretty cool, huh?”

“It was very cool,” Alex agrees, though she has other words she would pick first, and she strokes Kara’s hair until she falls asleep again.

“How’s the patient?” a familiar voice interrupts her some time later.

Alex doesn’t look away from her sleeping sister. “She woke up,” she tells him. “She’s awfully proud of herself. Remembers that she carried it into space. She said she’s cool.” Alex laughs and shakes her head.

“She is cool.”

“I’ll tell her you said that,” Alex teases, and when he comes to stand next to her, she finally manages to look away from Kara. “How are you?” she asks, and he side eyes her stoically. “I know Indigo had to be a hard fight, J’onn.

“I’ll be fine, Alex. You just worry about your sister.”

“I can worry about more than one person at a time, J’onn. Has anyone looked at you?”

“Your mother, actually. Which is why I’m here.” He lifts his shoulders and frowns heavily. “She won’t stop asking me about my enzymes.”

Alex grins. “Like mother like daughter.”

“Yes. Well at least you have to respect me as your boss.” He unfolds his arms and pats her shoulder. “I’m very glad that Kara is alright. Call me if you need anything.” She doesn’t look convinced that he’s alright—she looks like she’s trying to divide whether she would stay with Kara or go after him if he left, so he makes the choice for her. “On second thought, do you mind?” He points to the free chair next to her and Alex shakes her head no. He settles into it, puts his feet out in front of him. “You look like crap, Agent Danvers. Try to get some shut eye. I’ll look after Kara.”

“You’ve been watching those old cop shows again,” Alex accuses him, but the promise makes it easier to slip into sleep.

//

The second time Kara wakes, Alex is still by her side but she has showered and changed—Kara guesses that she has, at least, but it’s hard to tell since all of Alex’s tactical agent gear looks the same. She looks clean, though.

She’s reading through a folder an inch thick—judging from the size of it, Kara thinks it’s probably her medical file—and she smiles warmly when Kara sits up.

That she doesn’t move to stop her at all is a good sign.

“What the prognosis, doc? Am I gonna live?” Kara asks. She gets a glare in return that tells her that’s not a good joke and Alex flips the folder shut and slaps it down on the counter.

“It says here that you’re an idiot hero.”

Kara lifts one shoulder, grins a goofy little grin. “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Idiot is underlined seven times.”

“Wow. Okay, harsh.”

Alex grins and pushes away from the work bench, steps over to Kara’s side and lays a hand on Kara’s knee. She rubs with her thumb and Kara feels the last of the tension in her body seep away. She’s safe. She's with her sister. She’s safe and alive.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, teasing tone replaced by one that wars between a doctors clinical distance and a sisters desperation.

“Tired,” Kara tells her, with some surprise. She lifts a hand and blinks down at it, surprised when it hurts. “I’m—is that a bruise?”

“Yes.”

“I’m bruised. And…scabbing.”

“You’re a bit scraped. I’m sorry for that,” Alex says and she ducks her head a little, looks away.

“Don’t be.” Kara grabs at her sister’s hand. “Alex, I feel good. I feel great for someone who is supposed to be stuck in space. Hey, I didn’t get another Black Mercy stuck on me, did I? This isn’t a dream?”

Alex glares. “That isn’t funny.”

Kara grins. “It’s a little funny.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Well,” Kara says slowly, throwing her a look that tells Alex that yes it is kind of funny but she’ll let it go, “I’m alive. I’m—how am I alive?” she asks, confused.

“I—” Alex’s eyes flick over to the door. “I flew your pod up and I,” she lifts her hands, trying to demonstrate, and Kara gapes at her.

“You just nudged me back into the atmosphere?”

“Yes?”

Kara gapes at her for a little longer and then, in a move that surprises both of them, she throws her head back and laughs. “You,” she wheezes, “you nudged me back into the atmosphere. You took my pod—my pod you’re so tall it’s so tiny Alex!”

“Yeah, my neck still hurts,” Alex says, and Kara is set off again.

She lays back down so she can laugh harder, it seems, and the laughs are occasionally interrupted by a groan and Kara grabs her side and keeps laughing.

“I’m alive,” she sighs finally, and her hand flops out to grab Alex’s. “You saved me.”

“I had to. You’re my sister.” Alex gives her hand a squeeze. “How do you feel?” she asks abruptly. “Good enough to stand?”

“Um. I think so?”

“Alright.” Alex slaps her knee and jerks her head toward the door. “Come on.” She keeps up her brusque tone but her hands, when she helps Kara off the table and toward the exit, are gentle and never too far from her. “Quick change, Supergirl,” Alex says when she leads her to her suit—that, more than anything else, tells Kara how long she’s been asleep for. The suit looks pristine and is folded very carefully on a chair, shining red boots tucked underneath the chair.

“Uh.” Kara tests herself. “Yeah, Alex, you’re gonna have to help me into this,” she laughs, and tries to hide the way her hands are shaking. “No superspeed.”

Alex rolls her eyes.

“You know a guy made this suit."

"Uh, yeah, Winn made it."

"Listen, I'm making a comment on the male gaze, okay. I'm saying that I doubt a woman would have designed this.”

“I like it.”

“It’s so tight. And colourful.”

“Of course it is. It’s basically supposed to be a costume.”

“Exactly! I could have got you a tactical uniform with an iron on crest.”

“Alex!”

“What? It’s not like I could’ve got Hank to approve the budget for a specially designed uniform for you.”

“He’s not that much of a scrooge, is he?”

“Well, technically Vasquez overlooks the budget—“

“She's a scrooge. Once, I asked her if I could borrow a paperclip and I swear she wanted me to fill out a request form in triplicate." Alex snorts. "I would’ve looked just like you. But with a cape. Do you think I would’ve had the same boots? I think they’re cool.”

“Yep. Also, I’m pretty sure she heard that,” Alex stage whispers, watching Kara’s eyes widen and she stops trying to tug her tights up her legs. “She has this whole place mic-ed.”

“Really? Vasquez, can you look into getting me some of those boots? Please and thank you,” Kara laughs and jumps a few times until her tights are on. “This is so much easier when I have superpowers, I’m already tired.”

Eventually, she’s dressed and she adjusts her cape in the mirrored reflection of a cabinet. “Do I have to give a press conference or something?”

“Or something.”

Alex leads the way, Kara trailing behind a little.

“Alex, what’s going on?” The DEO headquarters are oddly quiet and she rushes to stop Alex, hand on her arm. “Where is everyone?” she asks, voice low and concerned. She strains her ears but this wing had been sound proofed long ago. Oh—and her powers still haven’t returned, she remembers, clenching her fists. “Are they okay? Were they hurt when, did I do it in time?”

“They’re okay,” Alex assures her. “Trust me.”

Kara’s jaw clenches and she stares at Alex for a moment, eyes worried, but then she nods and lets herself relax. “Okay.”

Alex steps out the door of the medical wing and into the headquarters proper. Kara relaxes further when she sees people moving around outside. The knowledge that they are safe lightens her until, powers or no, her feet barely skim the ground as she walks.

At the last door before they reach the central control room, Alex stops. “After you,” she says, and waves Kara ahead of her.

“What’s going on?”

Alex rolls her eyes and Kara rolls hers right back and steps through the doorway.

The first person to see her is a doctor. He stops still and raises a hand to his forehead—a salute, Kara realises. She stops. The sudden movement grabs the attention of a few more—agents, this time—and their boots stamp down onto the tiled floor and their salutes are more precise, snapping into place. Kara’s eyes widen. The sound garners enough attention that all the rest—more people than Kara can remember seeing gathered in the control room before—turn to her and, silently and proudly, they salute her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Alex step into the room behind her and move to the side. Kara turns and sees her sister press her heels down into the ground and salute.

Kara looks around at her people, her friends and the men and women and agents she has worked alongside for all these long months, her sister saluting her silently—Lucy, there, a small squad of General Lane’s men, and Hank at the front—and she swallows hard before she nods, just once.

“Supergirl,” Hank greets her, and in a whisper of action everyone drops their hands and relaxes to rest. “Outside these walls, you won’t get recognition. Acknowledgement for your sacrifice. Far too few people know what you did for us.” Kara nods again. “But we know. We know that you have done a great service at great personal sacrifice and,” Hank hesitates for a moment, clears his throat, and Kara sees the pain of grief and the relief in the way he swallows and nods, hand resting on his holster. “We are grateful to you. Very grateful. Thank you.” He steps forward and holds his hand out and Kara clasps it in both of her own.

She shakes more hands, sees more faces blur in front of her, as they make their way back to the control panel—Vasquez gives her a nod, a small smile and a “ma’am, I’ll see about those boots”—and they stand there together as everyone disperses.

“Are you alright?” Lucy asks, seeing Kara hold onto the rail.

“I am,” she assures her. “Just tired.”

“I’ll bet.” Lucy tilts her head. “Want me to take you home?”

Kara cranes her neck to look for Alex—she’s been snagged by a few doctors and they’re discussing quietly in the hallway, she looks excited and focused but every few moments she looks up to find Kara and when she sees her with Lucy, she nods and gives them a little wave.

“Yeah,” she pats Lucy’s shoulder, yawns. “That would be great, thank you.”

“No worries.”

“Plus, you want to interrogate me while I’m tired, don’t you?”

Lucy grins. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Kara laughs, catches the meaningful glance she exchanges with Hank, and groans. “Oh come on, you’re on babysitting duty?”

“Yep.” Lucy takes her hand. “Come on, baby,” she says and winks and when Kara, defences down and surprised, flushes and stutters she laughs. “So,” Lucy begins when Kara’s flush has died down, “did you and James kiss?”

Lucy laughs when Kara stumbles.

“Do you think I’ll get my powers back?”

“I think you fell out of space and you’re lucky to be alive at all,” Eliza tells her, and she tucks her blanket tight around her until Kara is afraid she won’t be able to breathe.

When Eliza goes to the kitchen, Alex takes pity on her sister and leans over to untuck her a little.

“I’m in more danger now than I was fighting my own uncle,” Kara grumbles and Alex smacks the back of her head and joins her mother in the kitchen, filling up her water bottle. “Hey!”

“You deserved that.”

“Oh what did she say now?”

“That she’s in more danger now—”

“You tattle!”

“—than when she was fighting her own uncle.”

“Kara!” Eliza turns to her, hands on hips. “You sit there and you take this, young lady. We were lucky enough to get you back from space so you better believe we’re going to make sure you survive humanity. Understood?”

“Yes, Eliza,” Kara mutters, and plucks at her blanket.

“Good.”

Kara waits for exactly three minutes before she sucks in a breath and asks again, voice small, “But do you think I’ll get my powers back?” Eliza presses a plate against the counter, stares down at it until Kara thinks maybe she’ll break it with force of will alone, and then she picks up her coat and bag and steps out of the apartment. Kara stares after her and sighs, rubs her forehead.

She hates headaches. She’ll be nicer to Alex next time she has a hangover, she promises.

“Move your feet,” Alex grunts, and drops down onto the couch. She pulls Kara’s feet back onto her lap. “Mom isn’t angry with you.”

“She looks angry.”

“She’s not,” Alex says again, waving her hand. “She’s just…She doesn’t want to lose you.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Because it’s hard to see you fling yourself up into the sky when you think you’re invincible and we’re scared for you all the time seeing you fight these, these super villains.”

“You think I’m not scared?” Kara twists, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Alex, you fight the same people I do and you don’t have bulletproof skin or, or super strength.”

“Okay.” Alex nods. “Okay. But the difference is that you could’ve died, Kara. You really could have died this time and yeah, she’s being overbearing right now but just,” she squeezes Kara’s ankle and rubs up her shin. Kara sighs. “Just let her, okay? There isn’t anything she can do, you’re a hero. So let her over-feed you and tuck you into bed and let her pretend that she can protect you.”

“Okay.”

Kara knows that she’s right—Eliza worries the most obviously, in that brisk purposeful way of hers. Laundry and a stocked pantry happened in a whirlwind, and she treats Kara’s scrapes with a cream that stings every time. Kara thinks she made it herself and made it sting on purpose. Eliza doesn’t admit to it, but after a few days she brings around a different balm that doesn’t sting at all.

Winn worries too. He’s been by a few times and since crash landing 2.0, as Alex and Kal-El dubbed it, Winn has kept a list of injuries she’s managed to accrue so he can pull it up on his phone whenever she even looks like she’s going to suggest they go for a walk outside. Or down to the bakery.

James always looks sad and Kara doesn’t invite him around more than twice. He hangs out with Kal-El when he’s there and that’s a relief—Kara doesn’t want to think about what is most important to him, Kara or the Kara who can be a hero and she knows that he says she’s both, says that both are important, but she’s not sure where he’ll stand if she’s just Kara Danvers.

Kal is nervous. He’s sure she’ll splinter in his arms so he never touches her. He’s happy to see her though—they never visit one another enough and he’s been with her for almost a week now. Powerless, weak, it doesn’t matter. She gets to sit and talk with her cousin and feel his warmth and see his smile, so like her uncle, and his size so much like her own father, and sometimes when he feels brave enough, he curls an arm around her shoulders and tugs her into a hug and he smells human but that ozone sharp edge to him that she’s never smelt on anyone else.

Alex is her favourite. She treats her just like normal and it’s only with her that she’s been able to fully relax. Stop acting. Actually tell her when she needs a pill. She brings Kara out of her thoughts with another instruction and a squeeze.

“And hey, try not to break your toe on the end of the bed again.”

“I won’t,” Kara promises, fervent. “That hurt so much! That hurt more than that time I broke my arm.”

Alex rubs her shin again and nods wisely. “I know. And if you keep hurting yourself, I’m going to throw Lego on the ground and you can see how painful it is to step on one of those.” Kara scrunches her nose—it doesn’t sound that painful, but Alex is grinning like it is and she nods quickly.

“Okay, I won’t, I promise.”

“Good. Now, I’m taking the leftovers home for me and Eliza.”

“You’re taking Eliza with you?”

“I think you can be trusted for one night.”

Kara squints at her. “You’re leaving an agent at the door, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“And what do you mean you’re taking the leftovers? I’m weak, Alex. I can’t go outside like this—you have to leave them for me.”

Alex glares at her. “No. Because you’ll think you still have your never-ending alien stomach and you’ll eat all of this before midnight and then, Kara, then you’ll get a stomach ache and panic and call me and I’ll kill you for interrupting the first full night of sleep I’ve had in months.”

“Huh.” Kara eyes her nervously and Alex lifts her eyebrows in a distinct challenge. “I… Do you want to take the leftovers when you leave, Alex?”

“Why yes, Kara. Yes I do. That would be so nice.”

//

“Kal-ex had no more information,” Clark tells her, disappointed and apologetic.

“It’s okay.”

“I can throw Jimmy off a building for you, if you want, get your adrenaline pumping,” he offers, and James rolls his eyes but laughs. Kara slaps her cousins arm.

“No!”

“Alright, alright.” Clark rubs at his arm as though it hurt, and then settles next to her, hugs her to his side and starts off on a dramatic retelling of someone he had fought with James years before she’d landed. She’s read all the stories she could get her hands on—the Danvers were happy to help her, though her fascination with her cousin and his powers worried them—but she’s always happy to hear him tell it.

“I flew through seven walls,” he says, and Kara laughs, and James throws some popcorn at him.

“Speak English for us humans!”

“Learn Kryptonian,” Clark shoots back.

“Pfft, you can’t talk,” Kara tells her cousin. “Your pronunciation needs work.”

“Excuse me,” Clark presses a hand to his chest. “How dare you?”

James laughs—he can’t understand them, mostly guessing their conversation from their expressions. He knows a few words here and there where they slip in and out of their languages, and then suddenly he understands more words because they’re in a language battle that Kara is destined to win but Clark keeps up admirably as they work through Spanish and Portuguese, French and he stumbles in German but regains footing in Hebrew and Arabic. When Kara narrows her eyes and starts flitting through Farsi, Polish, what sounds like several Indian dialects and then, possibly, into Thai. Clark raises his hands.

“You’ve got me beat.”

“Twenty five years in a pod will do that for you,” she concedes in a show of good sportsmanship, but only after she crows and holds her hands triumphantly over her head.

“I thought you were asleep for that?” Winn asks, looking away from the screen. “Also, you need to get a new Halo. This one is, like, really old.”

“No one plays that except for you, Winn. And I was asleep for most of it?” Kara shrugs. “I must’ve absorbed it. Osmosis.”

“That’s not how that works!” Alex calls out from the kitchen.

Winn and James leave eventually—Kara and Clark aren’t trying to ignore them but they’re immersed in their own conversation, mostly Kryptonian, a little English, and Alex rolls her eyes every time she hears Clark’s raised voice and Kara laughing because it’s always the same thing—“Stop making fun of me, Kara, I’m trying! Your English was terrible when you first got here!—but it’s nice, really nice, to have a home full of laughter. The worry has dissipated, mostly. There is only the faintest undercurrent left, and that’s just worry about Kara. Which they all always did, anyway.

When Clark finally gets an alert from Lois that he can’t ignore, he’s reluctant to go but Kara holds up her cape and points to the window and he kisses her forehead and uses the fire escape.

“The big guy coming back soon?”

“Mhm.” Kara curls her feet under her duvet. “He promised to wash up after dinner.”

“Oh good. I don’t have to do it then, I can just do this instead,” Alex says, and she considers that plenty of warning before she flops down on top of Kara, who struggles and squirms and then gives up. Laughs.

“You’re such an ass.”

“Maybe. But you love me.” Alex rolls to the side and they lay there, quiet. “What you did, Kara—”

“Alex.”

“Just, let me say it.” Kara frowns up at the ceiling but, after a moment, she nods. She entwines her fingers with Alex’s. “What you did… It was the bravest, most selfless thing I’ve ever seen,” she tells her. “And I hate you for it,” she says, fighting the way her voice wants to crack. “I was so scared, Kara. And I know that it’s my job and your job and there was no other way but I,” Alex squeezes her eyes shut tight and turns, presses her face into Kara’s shoulder. “Dammit, Kara, you’re my little sister. I couldn’t protect you.”

“Y’know,” Kara says, trying to swallow around the lump in her throat, “it’s okay to let me do the protecting, sometimes. I’m not that little.”

Alex laughs louder than the comment warranted and, when her laughter fades, they’re still just laying there together. She sighs. “I just wanted to tell you. I was scared.”

“Me too.”

Kara twists on the couch and there isn’t enough space, really. They’re all knocking knees and Kara is surprisingly heavy for her size and when her elbow slips and falls into Alex’s stomach, she wheezes for a good minute.

“Sorry.”

“I’m telling mom.”

“It was an accident.”

“Murder isn’t an accident, Kara,”

“Oh don’t be such a baby.”

When they settle again, Kara gnaws on her lip for a moment before inching close, pulling her sister into a hug. Alex tugs her close, wraps both arms around her. Kara twists her hands into her shirt and sighs happily. Her head tucks beneath Alex’s chin and they lay there on the too short couch and, for a moment, it feels like they’re the whole world that exists. Alex lets herself dream that Kara will be safe and whole and happy forever because in this world, in her world, there is no hate. There is just the two of them, two girls with bodies they’ve made into weapons to protect the other, with hands that have been taught to be gentle so that when the battle ends they can hold one another. Two girls, two sisters.

In her world, there is no room for any hurt. Just contentment, just a soft, wondering kind of joy that she can hold her sister close, that she’s alive and breathing. Just this love that sits inside her ribcage, warm and full and sometimes it burns and sometimes it aches but it’s human, Alex thinks,  sifting her fingers through her sister’s hair, to love so much it hurts.

If that’s the only requirement then Kara is the most human of them all, and the thought pulls Alex’s lips up into a smile and she huffs a laugh against the top of Kara’s head.

Kara pulls away a little.

“What is it?”

“Nah. Nothing.”

She looks at Alex curiously but she nods. “Okay.”

Alex leans her cheek against Kara’s crown. “Kara?” Her sister hums against her collar. “Were you really scared?”

“Yeah.” Kara’s fingers twist further in Alex’s shirt and she’s about to complain—don’t rip this one, be careful—when she remembers that Kara is small and human. For now. When Kara pulls away, Alex watches for her tells and she isn’t sure whether it’s because Kara feels safe or because she’s letting her see or what, but Alex can see it all—all the pain, the fear, the determination, the flash fire hope that sparks and sputters out as quick as it came—and she waits for Kara to explain. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. But I’d do it again, Alex.”

“I know,” Alex confirms, and she can’t stop the way her jaw clenches or the way she hugs maybe a little too hard, but she can control what she says. So she adds, “I really am proud of you."

Kara’s mouth twists. Her eyes brighten with tears. “Even,” she whispers, “if I was kind of relieved?”

Alex waits.

“I just,” she looks away. “Astra and, and my mom and dad. Krypton.” Kara shrugs. “I thought maybe I would see them again. That I could be with them and, and I wouldn’t be a hero anymore. It’s not that I don’t love it here or love being Supergirl, I do,” Kara is cut off when Alex tugs her back into her tight hug and her laugh sounds close to a sob. “I need to breath, Alex.”

“Not immediately. You’ll be fine without two minutes of oxygen. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”

“Okay,” Kara sighs and she waits it out, hugging Alex back. “I didn’t want to die,” she clarifies when Alex lets go. “I just thought, if I was going to die, it wasn’t so bad. Part of me, part of me knew that you were alive. Safe. And I didn’t think there was a way back so part of me wasn’t scared at all. There was only one path left to me then and knowing my family was waiting for me, to welcome me into Rao’s light, it was easy to go forward,” she meets Alex’s eyes and sometimes it hits her how strange her sister is. Not the flying, not the superpowers, not the fact that she’s an alien—all that Alex can, in some scientific way, understand.

Kara is young. She is bursting with energy and excitement and joy. Always. And for so long, Alex has thought that she has to protect Kara, that Kara doesn’t understand the world. But it’s times like this that makes her reconsider—Kara is more than her happy little sister, more than muscles and a cape, she is a girl who was sent halfway across the galaxy alone and scared and she has balanced her fear out with joy and her loneliness with love and Alex has known all of this, of course she has, she’s Kara’s sister and she’s not blind to her strengths. But there is a difference between knowing and knowing and it takes Kara looking at her and waiting for her to—to what? Renounce her? Cry? Tell her that its wrong and bad and sad to have been ready to die? Alex isn’t sure—it takes times like these for Alex to realise that her sister is more than what she will ever understand. That there is weight to Kara, and depths, that she will never understand.

But, she thinks, all the weight has shaped her into who she is, and all the depths can be equally measured in the heights of the love Alex has for her.

“One day,” Alex says, and she takes Kara’s hand in hers and makes sure that she is looking at her, “it really will be the end. And when that day comes, Rao is going to welcome you and all your family is going to be there. Everyone you have ever loved will wait for you and it will be warm, and golden, and you will never ever know darkness or loneliness again,” she says, pulling up words she remembers from when Kara was young, from when Kara had told her a little of what Rao’s love meant. She means it too—it’s everything Kara has ever wanted for her end and if Alex has to fight a god to make it happen, well. She’s fought other weird shit so how hard could it be?

“Thank you,” Kara whispers and she nods into Alex’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Alex pulls back to frown at her. “But. Not too soon, okay?” Kara laughs and nods her agreement. “Good.”

“Cat,” Kara greets, surprised, when she opens the door to see her.

“Kara.”

Kara is still just staring at her so Cat waits, slips her phone into her purse and refrains from taping the toe of her very expensive heels on Kara’s hallway floor.

“Is Carter okay? Is he safe?”

“He’s as well as can be expected.” Kara’s worry doesn’t fade, so Cat adds, softer, “He’s fine, Kara.”

“Then, I mean, you’re here.”

“Yes, I am.”

“At my apartment.”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

“Truthfully,” Cat says, drawing the word out, uncomfortable admitting this, “I’ve never come to you before. And I thought, well, I thought that should probably change.” She hides her discomfort behind a glare. “And because you have been mysteriously M.I.A. so I thought it best to check you’re still alive. And imagine my surprise,” she drawls, eyes scanning Kara from double-socked feet up to her messy hair, “to find you alive and well and playing hooky. Well,” Cat shrugs elegant, a masterful gesture from her showing exactly how little she cares, and turns away. “Good for you,” she calls back. “There is something to be said for celebration, I suppose.”

“Cat, wait.” Kara hesitates at the door, wavering. Then she steps out and follows slowly, padding the few steps to her. She curls a hand around Cat’s wrist and tugs.

She doesn’t manage to turn Cat on that alone—it’s surprise that makes Cat spin, and opens her eyes wide and her mouth drops open for a split second, a breathy “oh” slipping out.

“What?” Kara cocks her head to the side.

“You’re powerless.”

Kara laughs. “Well, yeah. Mostly. A little. I’m,” she lifts a hand to her cheek, brushes her fingers over perfect flawless skin. Cat wants it to be her own fingers. “Healing is back. Mostly.”

“No strength?” Cat asks, pressing forward, eyes sharp and curious. “No flying? No hearing? No,” she waves a hand to Kara’s eyes and the woman shakes her head.

“Nope. Gone. Well, the hearing isn’t totally gone but,” she tilts her head, “my left ear is better than my right, which makes me feel weird.”

“For how long?”

“I’m not sure if it’s always been better and it’s just more noticeable now or if it’s something that happened recently or if it’s going to fix itself when I get my powers back—umm,” Kara stops herself. “That’s not what you were asking.”

“No. How long are your powers out for?”

“Oh.” Kara hides her worry well. Cat is impressed. “Not sure. Until then, I’m on sick leave. Doctor’s orders.”

“You went to the doctor like this?”

Kara smiles at her, sweet and amused, and that’s not a reaction Cat is used to when it comes to her ‘you’re more stupid than I thought you were’ tone. She’s smiling like Cat has said something silly. “Doctor Danvers,” she says, and Cat purses her lips. Well. Perhaps she had said something silly after all.

“I see.”

Kara shivers and clutches at her blanket, rubs the sole of one foot over the top of the other, switches to do the same for the other foot. The fabric starts to slip from around her shoulders—the red of it is familiar and Cat rolls her eyes when she realises that it’s Kara’s cape.

“You came outside wearing that?”

“You were out here and I, I thought maybe you wouldn’t wait.”

“You could have left it.”

“It’s cold,” Kara argues. She reaches up for glasses that aren’t there and, recognising the gesture for what it is—discomfort, nerves, wanting to hide for some reason—Cat reaches over and takes her hand into her own. Kara looks down at their joined hands for a moment then, “So, you want to come in?”

Cat nods. “Please.”

Kara lets Cat in first and immediately starts up with her chatter.

“So Carter’s definitely fine, right? Because you said fine but, like, is that fine or is it actually fine or, ow.” Kara sucks her finger into her mouth, waves Cat off when she rounds on her, worried. “It’s fine, I’m fine, I just closed the door on my finger.”

“You are a disaster. Carter is perfect, of course.”

“He’s a great kid but that’s not exactly what I mean. Is he getting headaches?”

“No. No, he’s healthy.”

They stand still for a moment. Cat examines the room critically. Kara gestures to the bar stools at her kitchen island. “You can sit, if you want, Miss Grant.”

“Miss—No, it’s Cat, Kara,” she tells her, a little sharp, and Kara looks across at her.

“Then don’t act like Miss Grant.”

Cat purses her lips. She wonders if Kara knows the extent of what she’s asking—whether she has any clue how long she’s stayed away because this dilemma played over and over again in her head, how she is allowed to fell about it all, what she is allowed to feel, what answers she’s allowed to demand, what she’s allowed to tell Kara because Miss Grant is a journalist, a boss, a woman who puts her career first and considers the needs of the city before her own and Cat, Cat isn’t all that different but she’s attached to Kara and oh how much harder that will make everything.

She wants to leave again.

Kara places a cup in front of her. “Coffee? I just made a pot.” Cat nods, murmurs something that might be a please, and Kara pours her a drink. It smells nice—Cat is surprised. She’s not sure that she pays Kara enough for a good blend. That is confirmed when Kara points to the bag in her cupboard. “A gift,” she tells her. “From my cousin.”

“Ah.” She sips. “It’s nice.”

“Mhm. My favourite.”

They’re quiet for a few minutes. Kara fiddles with a band-aid on her hand, smoothes it over with her thumb. When she looks up, her eyes are dark and reserved and Cat suspects that Kara does have some idea of what she was asking after all.

“If I'm not Miss Grant," she says, placing her cup down, "I... Cat is angry,” Cat warns.

“Cat probably has a list of reasons to be angry.”

“Cat is angry with you.”

“Kara recognises that Cat has reasons to be angry with her.”

“Oh stop it, you sound ridiculous talking in third person.”

“You started it.” Cat glares and Kara smiles back, saccharine sweet.

“Cat is hurt.”

Kara’s smile fades. She nods down to her cup. “I, I’m sorry. But we deserve to talk about this as. As us. Being honest with each other and ourselves. Not using fronts.”

Cat inclines her head to acknowledge Kara’s point. “I have questions as a journalist too, you realise.”

“There’ll be time for that.”

She nods again. “Alright.”

She doesn’t miss the way Kara braces herself. There is a part of Cat, not small but not the largest part of her, that rather enjoys that they are having the conversation while Kara is powerless. It’s a vindictive protective little part of her, barbed, and she uses it from time to time—when she’s under attack, when she has to protect herself, when she’s moving cautious or less cautiously into new ground to conquer—and she hopes that she won’t resort to lashing out with it too much. She hopes that she’s going to let Kara meet her as an equal.

“You haven’t been to see me,” she begins, and swallows. It feels like too vulnerable a statement and it takes her a minute to swallow the barb that tries to follow immediately. Kara answers it like it was a question.

“I lost my powers. They won’t let me out.”

“I can’t imagine you letting that stop you from doing anything if you really wanted it.”

“Well, Cat,” Kara says, setting her cup down sharply on the counter, flinches like she thinks it’s about to shatter, relaxes when it doesn’t. “It’s not like you’ve come to see me either.” Cat spreads her hands as if to say, ‘here I am’, and Kara shakes her head. “Two weeks, Cat. It’s not like you were busting down my door. And this? This doesn’t count—you can’t come here bundling up your high ground and use it against me. If you want to have a conversation I’m all for it—if you came to trade jibes, sorry, I’m all out and I’m too tired for that. And you’re not going to get apologies either. I want to talk to you. I don’t want to be attacked and then forgiven for whatever wrongs you think I’ve committed. It’s deflection and distraction and we keep missing the point and never move on.”

Cat folds her hands in front of her and very purposefully doesn’t make eye contact with Kara.

She can’t tell if Cat is angry or not but Kara can’t find it in herself to care—she’s weak in everything right now but she's not going to be weak with Cat.

She shouldn’t have to be.

It shouldn’t be a fight.

And she knows Cat knows that too—she knows that Cat faces every challenge with strategy but that won’t work here, or if it does it won’t be genuine and Kara wants that more than anything, a genuine relationship not a transaction that turns into a give and take they want to level out not a competition—Kara refuses to let her strategise them.

She tops up their coffees though their cups are still mostly full.

“You’re right,” Cat says eventually, carefully, and Kara tries not to read more into her tone than what is there—does she sound sour? is she annoyed that I’m right? is she going to fight me on that? am i playing into her game somehow? has Cat thought ten steps ahead and is conceding this for some reason?

It isn’t fair to Cat and it’ll drive Kara mad to second guess Cat at every step so she lets her breath out slowly and nods, tries to just trust. When Cat looks at her with bright eyes, licks her lips, and offers her a small smile, trusting is easier.

“I was asleep for the first week.”

“Asleep.”

Kara grimaces. “Unconscious.”

“Ah.”

“But you’re right. I could probably have tried to visit you this week.”

“And I could’ve visited you before now. You were right, we both held back. For different reasons, I suspect,” Cat says, eyes intent. “I was scared. And furious.”

“Scared?” Kara asks, confused. And then, more confused, “Furious?”

“Yes.”

Kara makes an impatient noise and waves her hand.

"Forgive me if I’m not immediately forthcoming about my emotions like some millennial,” Cat sneers.

“The problem isn’t your age or generation, it’s that I’m already vulnerable and you’re not letting yourself be.”

“Well.” Cat leans backwards, away from kara, and then slowly she says, “That’s a surprisingly accurate insight.” Kara flushes unhappily—it was an outburst and she hadn’t meant to say it, even if she did mean it.  “I’m not angry, Kara.”

“I am.” Cat makes a small noise and Kara shakes her head. “Not with you. Not with you.” Cat relaxes a touch—an unnecessary movement, not one she would make normally, and Kara smiles when she realises that Cat is letting her see how she feels. She’s sure Cat knows Kara is dissecting everything and it helps so much for Cat’s words to match her expression, stance, actions.

“Why were you scared?” Kara asks. Cat throws her a disgusted look.

“Really, Kiera?”

“Kara.”

Cat looks surprised—Kara’s voice is a touch too loud, and sharp—and then she nods. “Kara. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be Kiera anymore. I want to be, I want to—” she frowns, reaches up to touch her glasses—they still aren’t there, she keeps forgetting, and she looks startled. The glasses are a part of her, a large part, they mean something to her that Cat doesn’t quite understand. She’d like to. For now, she just enjoys the look, the openness it lends to Kara’s face.

“You’re beautiful,” she says. The words slip out. She doesn’t take them back. It’s nothing of what she wanted to say when she came—she’s still angry, still scared—but it is true.

“—mean more to you,” Kara finishes before she registers Cat’s words. “Oh. I—thank you?” She lifts her cup and drinks, looks away.

Cat clears her throat. “You can call me Kitty when I call you that,” she offers, though her lips twist at the thought and Kara actually laughs.

“You would hate that.”

“Yes well. Fair is fair.”

“I’d rather you just not call me Kiera like that.” Kara steps over to the island. She’s on the opposite side to Cat but they’re in the same space, at least, and she leans against the wood and into the space. Cat finds herself mimicking the action, leaning in, however slightly.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m an idiot. I don’t mind when you’re teasing, but, when you aren’t teasing it makes me feel like I don’t matter. I deserve to matter, Cat.”

“So basically you’re asking me to treat you with basic decency?”

Kara’s lips turn upwards and her eyes—they twinkle and Cat wants to roll her eyes because that shouldn’t be humanly possible and it shouldn’t be as endearing as it is. “Don’t hurt yourself,” Kara teases.

“Hmm.”

“You are a good person, I know you’re capable of it,” Kara continues.

Cat glares at her with little heat behind the look. “Don’t push it.”

Kara pushes. “Why were you scared?”

“Because I thought you were dead.”

That wasn’t the answer she expected and Kara jerks with surprise, spilling a little of her drink when her cup overturns and she scrambles to right it. She sets it to the side and awkwardly grabs a cloth to dab up the coffee. “I, I, what?”

“For a whole day.”

“I—” Kara blinks. “Oh. Rao, Cat,” she stutters, “I am so sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t—“ She considers that for a moment more, nods. “I’m sorry. I guess they didn’t want to get your hopes up. Alex wasn’t sure I’d make it.”

Cat narrows her eyes. They agreed to discuss this as themselves but Cat doesn’t think she can get through this as someone who lo—who cares for Kara. She has to distance herself a little. The change isn’t obvious. A relaxing of her hands, straightening of her spine. An edge to her voice when she asks, “It was close, then?” She still cares. That was always her superpower, how much she cared about her stories, but she tightens her hold on all the ways she’s connected, invested, and refuses to let that bias her. Distance. She needs it.

Kara notices. She’s always seen Cat. She hesitates.

“Tell me the truth,” Cat demands, and Kara nods.

“I don’t know. The details, I don’t know it all. Once Alex got me I know that I fell. Badly. And I blew out my powers badly, still out.” She shrugs. “So, I guess it was close, yeah.” She scrunches up her nose and shrugs, loose, and Cat recognises the role Kara is playing there too. Perfectly average Kara. Perfectly normal Kara. She doesn’t call her out on it—she doesn’t know why Kara needs it but she wouldn’t do it if she didn’t need it, not when she too promised to talk as herself, but she suspects Kara is feeling more than just habit. More than the habit to downplay her powers, downplay the intensity of the fight—perhaps she’s had enough of people looking at her like more than what she is. A god, Kara is not. Or perhaps if she admits how close it was, she’ll feel it all over again. Perhaps she’s too raw for that.

“Got you from where?”

“Um. What did Alex tell you?”

“The Baby Lane told me. She said you were alive.”

“And?”

“That’s all she told me,” Cat clarifies, annoyed.

“Oh. Did you— Do you want to know what happened?” Cat gives her that look again and sighs. Kara nods. “Right. The tone was being generated by the tech in the giant alien prison that crashed in Nevada with me.”

Cat blinks. “I see.”

“Never thought I would say something like that,” Kara laughs. “Before he died, my uncle told us that it was locked and that as long as it was there, the tone would continue to grow and kill everyone.” Cat nods. “So I flew it away.”

“Where?”

Kara points upwards. She sees when it clicks.

“Space?”

“Yeah.”

Cat thinks about it for a while.

“You said Alex got you?”

“She flew my old pod up and,” Kara screws up her face. “Nudged me? Back into the atmosphere, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I don’t really remember. Bits and pieces.” She rubs her arms and tugs her cape around her, shivers. “Mostly, I just remember falling.”

“Falling.” Cat repeats. “Out of space.” Her expression shifts so slowly Kara almost doesn’t register when it changes to anger. Fury. “And you asked me why I was scared? You were going to die and you ask me why I was scared?”

“And furious?”

“Irrationally,” Cat waves her hand and Kara bites her tongue to stop herself from asking her to tell her anyway because Cat looks final. “But it’s why I didn’t come to see you. I didn’t,” Cat looks down to her hands, fiddles with the handle of her mug in a a show of uncharacteristic nerves. She throws her shoulders back and faces Kara head on, letting her see—letting herself be vulnerable just as Kara asked. “I didn’t want to come to you if I was angry, Kara. You deserve,” she hesitates. “You deserve so much.”

“You should’ve come.”

Cat nods. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Kara drags her stool closer, around the corner to sit facing Cat, her knees pressed against Cat’s thigh. She lays her hand over Cat’s. “How do you feel now?”

Cat doesn’t speak for a long time.

She flips her hand over and lets Kara’s hand slip comfortably into her own. “Scared.”

“Why?” Kara asks her softly.

“I told you once that I understand what it means to only be able to act after the fact. To report on what is done.” Cat lets out a slow breath, trying to disguise the way it shudders. “Kara, when you left me on that balcony, I thought we were going to lose and you would die trying to save us or you would save us and die or maybe, maybe, we would all live. Those aren’t odds that I like, Kara. You would be dead and I would be the one writing your exit. You asked me if I would write your story and I will. And I would if you died but do you know what that would be like for me? I can't imagine. To some extent, I can. My father is dead and I have written about him. But this would not be the same. Do you know,” she swallows, “what it’s like waiting to find out if someone is alive or dead?”

“I—”

“It’s not like Schrödinger proposes. You aren’t equally dead or alive, Kara, you’re dead. It’s safest to think you’re dead—at least then, maybe, you might still be alive but you don’t let yourself grieve, yet, because what if you’re wrong? And then, then Kara, you start to think maybe you’re alive. And my whole body aches with hope and that’s even worse,” she hisses, furious now, and Kara starts to understand, “because at any moment it could be ripped away. And I can’t be angry because you’re saving literally the whole world. I can’t be angry because I know I’m self obsessed, I know I’m a Queen, but it would be a new level of self obsession to want you to stay, to not do it. To even consider asking you not to go and be a goddamn hero. So, Kara, you want to know how I’m feeling? I’m feeling angry. I’m sad because I know you’ll do it again, I’m furious because you’ll leave me, I’m proud because you would do anything and I’m scared because my son loves you and you’re going to break his heart, you’re going to break our heart.”

She never deviates from her cold, low voice, and Kara feels the chill in her bones.

It’s hard to breathe, suddenly, and far too cold, and she tugs shaking fingers out of Cat’s hand and wraps her cape more tightly around her shoulders. She buries her nose in it and tries to pick out Clark’s smell—the warm, sharp smell they share—and slowly, with fingers brushing through her hair, she calms down.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. You had every right to say all of that. I didn’t mean to, to freak out.”

“It’s alright, Kara.” Cat shushes her. “It’s alright, just breathe.”

Cat smells of perfume and sweat and makeup and Kara leans into her.

“You are more than I could ever understand, Kara,” she murmurs. “It’s confusing for me. I like to know things. I want the truth, the whole truth, more than anything else in the world. I want to set things out so they make sense. I want to direct the way people think, I want to forge something. And then a girl in a cape flies into the scene and with a smile she does incredible things, impossible things, and I have to re-evaluate what I’ve done. What I’ve made. She pushes me to be better. To think harder, to work harder, to love more. But it’s rarely pleasant to be confronted by your failings, Kara.”

“What do you think your failings are?”

“Don’t be coy. It suits you, but it doesn’t suit this conversation.”

Kara can breathe properly again so she pulls back. “What are your failings?” she asks again.

“We both know I’m cold. More shrewd than sweet. More interested in the basic truth than in the merit of a built truth. A truth to strive for. No, the world isn’t kind and gentle and easy, but I don’t have to perpetuate the harshness of it. And for too long, that’s exactly what I’ve done.”

“You don’t have to be kind to care. And I know you care. Carter,”

“Carter is an exception, not the rule.”

“Adam too.” Cat concedes that with a nod. “Me.” Another nod, more hesitant. “And you say you don’t care about the rest, but I disagree.” Cat scoffs and Kara shrugs. “Maybe you’ve been harsh going after the truth but you’ve been the most harsh with the liars and the cheats and the people who have never given kindness without something to gain. And I think, I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” Kara frowns, trying to set out her thoughts so they make sense. Because how she feels about Cat isn’t a straight line. It’s nebulous, it’s expansive, and trying to tug that into something like order is hard. “Kindness isn’t a bribe, kindness isn’t supposed to be a reward. Kindness should be freely given. And you are’t always kind but you are rarely, rarely cruel and you treat everyone with the respect they deserve. You’ve never pretended to be something that you aren’t—people trust that you say what you mean, and I think that means more than what you think it does.”

“I know the value of truth, Kara. It’s what I’ve built my empire on.”

“And you underestimate the amount of your empire is built on your reputation, Cat! You’re not just a figurehead to them. You’re an actual leader and you need to trust your readers are smart. That’s what you tell your mother, isn’t it?” Cat scowls at the mention of her mother and jerks a nod. “That’t they’re smart, that they understand. You’re the one that taught people to look for the truth, to read between the lines, to read critically, to want critical information and to understand it. You gave it to them and you keep giving that standard and they keep reading your work because that’s what they want and you’re the only one who can do it right. Why do you think they wouldn’t do the same to you?” Cat blinks. “You taught me. I wouldn’t be half the hero I am without working for you. You think I just flew in and magically fixed things? You’re wrong. I learned from you. I learned so much. So take the credit you deserve, Cat. You’ve never been uncertain about that before, don’t start now.”

Cat swallows. “I thought we were supposed to be arguing. Talking about why we stayed away for two weeks.”

Kara nods. Folds a little into herself now her righteousness is fading. “Right.”

“Actually,” Cat sits again, turns sharp eyes on Kara. “I told you why I stayed away.”

“Scared and furious is half a reason, Cat. You could’ve come to yell at me.”

“I didn’t want to do that. You almost died to save the world, you didn’t deserve that.”

“Because I deserve so much,” Kara repeats back to her and Cat nods.

“Yes.”

“Why did you come today?” She frowns, the thought occurring to her suddenly. “If you were staying away, why now? Why today?”

Cat purses her lips.

“Cat?”

“I…The Tribune pitched an article about your untimely demise,” she says, cool and calm. Her fingers claw around her mug in sharp opposition to her tone. “I told them not to bring me anything they couldn’t verify.”

“I’m sure you said it just like that,” Kara teases.

“Yes, well,” Cat rolls her eyes. “You’re familiar with how I deal with imbeciles.”

Kara thinks about it for a moment. Then, guessing, “You glared at them until they ran away.” Cat sniffs. “That’s my favourite. I also like it when you throw notes with synonyms for idiotic at them.”

“Even though you have to clean them up afterwards?”

“You always come up with a new one, it’s worth it.”

Cat makes a sharp noise in her throat—a disagreement, a laugh, a bit of both. “We’re arguing, Kara. Do stop distracting me.”

“Of course, Miss Grant. So, the article?”

“It kept bothering me. And your desk was so empty and I,” Cat shook her head. “I thought it was awful when we were pretending to be professional. Did I ever tell you that?” she asks her, looking distant and vulnerable and Kara takes her hand again. She doesn’t ever want to stop touching her.

“I hated it too.”

“It was so much worse, thinking you might be dead.” Cat turns away. Her eyes closed, Kara takes in her profile eagerly, getting to stare without Cat knowing. Her throat bobs with a sharp swallow. “And the wondering. I’m very intelligent, Kara,” she says, opening her eyes and glaring at Kara like it’s her fault that Cat’s brain works overtime. “Do you know how many scenarios I came up with? How badly you might be hurt?” Kara squeezes her hand. “I didn’t want to confirm them. But today, today I just needed to know.”

“I’m sorry no one told you,” Kara says again. Cat nods. “My turn?” she asks when Cat just stares at her and then Cat nods again. Kara’s heart flutters. Her fingers shake a little—noticeably, clearly, because Cat tightens her grip. “Okay. I was telling the truth, by the way. They’ve had an agent on me the whole time, at least one. And my mother, Rao,” she shakes her head and Cat laughs. “She’s not as bad as yours. She’s not bad at all,” Kara confesses with a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. “She’d like you. Angry, scared, over protective. She wanted to strap me down to the bed to make sure I never get hurt again.”

“I assure you, I like the sound of that for very different reasons, Kara.”

Kara flushes. “Cat, at least I was being nice when I distracted you.”

“Oh trust me, I can be very nice.”

“Cat!”

The woman rolls her eyes and waves her free hand. “Yes, alright. I’m—“

“Nervous? Deflecting?” Kara says knowingly. Cat purses her lips. “I think you might be right, though.”

“I usually am.”

Kara continues like Cat hadn’t spoken. “I could’ve come to you if I really wanted. If I really wanted to, I wouldn’t have stopped until I was in front of you.”

Cat’s face pales. Kara thinks for a moment that she might try to take her hand away but instead, she grips more tightly and Kara doesn’t wince because the pain is slight and welcome. “I was holding back, you’re right. For different reasons. I—” 

Cat’s phone buzzes angrily between them and they both stare at it.

“I can turn it off.”

“Your lunch break is long over,” Kara reminds her. “You have an empire to run. This can wait.”

Cat nods, slips her hand away. “Of course. I’ll answer this.”

“Go for it,” Kara says, leaping onto the reprieve. “I’ll make you a latte to go.”

Cat looks up from her phone, surprised. Kara thinks she's surprised too that Kara isn't just hurrying her away, out of her home. That she wants her to linger. “You can do that?”

“Yeah, I got a fancy new machine. Just don’t tell Alex that I’m using it. I’m not supposed to do it without adult supervision,” she laughs. “I keep burning my fingers. I heal, of course, after a little while, but apparently my saying ouch every ten minutes really gets on Alex’s nerves and she banned me.”

“Hmm.”

Cat slips her glasses out of her purse and reads the message that had interrupted them—“I’m going to call Finance back,” she says and Kara nods, frowning at the coffee machine—and she’s gone for a few minutes.

When Kara hisses, she hadn’t heard Cat finish her conversation or return from the living room but suddenly she’s behind her.

“Again? Really?”

“I’m getting better,” Kara insists, and lifts her fingers to her mouth. The latte, at least, is finished and perfect.

Before she can suck on the reddened digits, Cat has taken her hand and she examines them closely. Kara watches carefully—breath locked to bursting in her chest, heart thumping—and until the very last moment she tells herself that Cat will let go, that she’s imagining this, and then Cat is lifting her fingers further towards her own mouth and surely, Kara thinks, surely she’s just going to kiss her hand or blow on her fingers, that’s all. So, when her fingers are sucked into Cat’s mouth, she’s the furthest from ready.

Kara whines, eyes wide. Her knees buckle and Cat slings an arm around her waist, moves quickly to slam Kara against the counter.

A dribble of coffee spills out of the to-go cup.

Kara gasps, pain flaring in a line across her back.

Cat’s mouth isn’t helping the burning on her fingers—her mouth is hot, it’s really not medicinal at all, a distant part of Kara’s brain allows her to think before it shuts down along with any part of her that isn’t thinking Rao and hot and Cat Cat Cat.

When Cat releases her fingers, there is a ring of lipstick smudges and Kara groans, leans her head back to knock against the cupboard.

“Oh Rao,”

“Deep breath, Kara,” Cat advises her, and Kara has half a what on her lips—it never sees the light of day. It jumps, half-formed, from her lips when Cat’s lips land on the side of her neck and Kara cries out.

“Oh fuck.” The words, or the way her voice cracks, must please Cat because Kara knows she feels those wicked lips turn up and she knows Cat sucks a little harder.

Cat pulls back after a minute, lips pale—all her lipstick is gone, Kara realises, and her eyes slam closed when she realises what that means. It’s all on her.

“We shouldn’t,” Kara whispers because they haven’t talked, they haven’t seen each other in two weeks and she thought maybe the feelings would go away, that’s what she was going to tell Cat—she thought maybe it was a product of the fear and the worry and the stress that had been building and that was why they had kissed, that was why she had wanted Cat to hold her, that was why she had said those precious words to her and two weeks gone without Cat and the feelings haven’t done. They’ve only grown and she groans now and holds a trembling hand between them. “Cat, we shouldn’t,” she says again, but she wants and Cat slots herself into that gap like her hand isn’t there at all and she looks up at Kara.

“Just answer me this,” Cat demands, and Kara sees in her eyes she’s trying hard to keep it a demand. Her eyes make it a desire, a hope. Kara holds her breath. “Do you want this?”

Kara swallows hard—she tries to hold steady and send Cat away because that’s what she should do but it’s so hard and maybe, she thinks, she’s done doing the hard thing, the right thing. “Yes,” she husks.

Cat presses up against her, winds her arms around Kara’s waist. “Then,” she says, voice dripping with promise, “you should visit me next.”

“Wait - what?”

Cat steps back and lifts her takeaway cup to her lips, sips. “Oh. This is good. Thank you.”

Kara feels her powers curl through her—weak, pitiful to how she normally feels, but enough that she can move to bracket Cat against the island quicker than Cat can move away and she grins when she sees the colour in Cat’s eyes swallowed by black.

“I have to get back to work,” Cat tries to say firmly, but there is a slight waver that Kara takes advantage of.

“You want this too.” Hers isn’t a question. She doesn’t need Cat’s faint nod, but she appreciates it. “Go, then,” she tells Cat, flippant, pretending however badly that she isn’t affected by this, and she grins when Cat scowls at her.

This time, when Cat curls a hand around the back of her neck, she gives as much as she gets. When Cat pulls away first to get a better angle, Kara reaches up and takes her chin in a sure hand and tips Cat’s face how she wants it. Holds her still. Cat shivers. Kara groans into her ear and Cat shivers again and Kara wants to feel that again, wants to see if Cat makes sounds too—she wants and wants and Cat wants too. So she presses a kiss to her jaw and her neck and, driven by something, some need to see Cat angry or needy or to mark her like she’s sure the lipstick marks her own neck, she pulls Cat’s neckline to the side and sucks a red mark onto her collar bone until Cat is panting into her ear. Then, finally, she pulls away with a drag of her teeth over the mark and watches as Cat puts herself back together.

“You’ll come to see me.” Cat commands her, and she makes an annoyed sound in her throat when she checks her phone that had been distantly buzzing in her bag. “Think about you want to say,” Cat suggests carefully, as gently as she can, and Kara nods. Cat had been honest—so honest—and Kara wants to do right by both of them by repaying that in kind. It’s terrifying but in the good way. Like flying for the first time. Or, maybe, it’s what humans feel like in free fall. A lot scary, a lot exciting.

“Tonight?”

“No,” Cat sighs. “No, this work is going to keep me busy. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Kara agrees readily. “I’ll get away.”

“Good.” Cat lifts a hand to her cheek, leans in, stops before she really moves. “A kiss is not my best idea,” she tells Kara with a wry little smile and Kara shrugs. Takes a comically large step backwards. “An assistant is supposed to make my life easier.”

“I’m on sick leave. Technically, I’m not your assistant right now.”

“No,” Cat agrees, eyes burning a trail over her. “You definitely are not.” She clicks her bag closed. “Goodbye,” she says shortly, and marches out without another word.

Kara would be offended if she didn’t know the brusque treatment was because Cat wanted to kiss her until she was weak.

Well. Weaker.

Kara flings herself down onto the couch and sighs, grinning, up to the ceiling. They have a lot to talk about still but Cat—she presses her fingers to her lips and grins wider still—Cat wants her too.

//

“You have a guest today?” Alex asks her later, taking her through some exercises in her living room. They had moved the couches out to make space and Kara was sweating her way through sit-ups and push-ups and trying not to complain bitterly at how much harder it is without powers.

“Huh? No, no guests,” Kara laughs and grunts. “Hold my feet, Alex, I can do more. Ten more?”

“No, don’t push yourself.”

“I can do it!”

“Sure you can, but you can also deflect.”

“Deflect?” Kara laughs again, and since Alex isn’t buying it she props herself up onto her elbows and looks down at her sister, who is staring at her with a curious, almost amused look. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Alex,” she whines. “What?”

She just shrugs and holds out a hand for Kara, helps her to her feet. “Stretching. Warm down and then you can have a shower.”

“Thank Rao.”

“And then we can have dinner and you can tell me why you have lipstick on your neck.” Kara’s hand slaps over the mark—her skin is still burning where Cat’s soft lips had been—and flushes when Alex grins at her, far too pleased. “Let me guess. Winn was wearing lipstick this time.”

“Ew, no. I mean,” Kara flushes, “sure, yes, that’s what happened.”

Alex laughs. “I can’t believe you’ve kept your identity secret for this long. You’re terrible at lying.” Kara laughs too loud at that and Alex narrows her eyes. “Who else found out? Your landlord? Your pizza delivery guy?”

“My neighbour,” she mumbles, hanging her head.

“Which one? Because the old one isn’t a problem, no one will believe them. But if it’s the pretty lady we might have a problem.”

“Oh yeah, it’ll be such a problem to wine and dine her and tell her how important it is to keep it to herself, you have such a hard job, Alex.”

“If she turns out to be a creep I’ll have to wipe her memory,” Alex points out and then she jabs Kara in the side. “God you’re so terrible at this.”

“Hey! Oh cramp, ouch!” Kara stumbles sideways onto the couch and grins over at Alex. “It’s the old neighbour anyway. I was helping her with her cat who got trapped under the radiator, you know how Scruffy does that, and I didn’t have my glasses on and she said how nice it is to live next to a hero. She said I’m very kind,” Kara beams, and Alex drops down next to her, pats her knee.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Hey!”

“And are you sure you know what you’re doing with Cat?”

“No,” Kara sighs, and she leans her head on Alex’s shoulder and smiles, twines their fingers together. “Not at all,” she tells her happily. “But I like her.”

“If she hurts you, I’m not above shooting her.”

“She’s a civilian.”

“I’ll make it a flesh wound.”

//

Kara showers and curls up onto the couch again, muscles aching pleasantly. Alex makes them a stir fry—full of vegetables since “you can get scurvy now if you’re not careful, Kara”—and halfway through dinner, a thought occurs to her. It’s a nice evening—warm, the air dry and light and her stomach hurts from laughing and her sister makes a face when she picks the mushrooms out even though she’s the one who added them because Kara loves them and the sounds of the city are distant and muted and Kara leans against the reassuring weight of the table and taps her fork against her plate thoughtfully.

“Kara?” Alex is looking at her worriedly, hand stretched halfway across the space between them. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “I was just thinking.”

“About?”

Kara waves her hand around her awkwardly. “Just, if I never get my powers back,” she starts and Alex’s face twists worriedly so Kara closes the distance and squeezes her hand, grins at her, “this isn’t such a bad life.”

“Kara,” she breathes. “I don’t understand you.” She shakes her head, squeezes back. “You have had so many reasons to give up, so many reasons to be less kind and happy, but you,” Alex leans back in her head and gestures to Kara. “You’re not. You always come out stronger. Brighter.”

“Don’t you know that I could only do that because I had you?” Kara tells her, and Alex swallows, blinks quickly and has to look away. She nods awkwardly and Kara grins. “I can still be a consultant, right?” she asks, and Alex rolls her eyes and nods and is about to answer when Kara cries out, clamps her hands down on her ears.

“Kara? Kara—what is it?”

“It’s—“ Her face blanches, heart lurches in her chest. “No. Rao, no, it’s the tone. Cat, Carter, they’re in danger, I have to go,” she spits out and races into her bedroom to spin into suit she had hung up a week ago. “Alex,” she calls, emerging.

“Go,” Alex agrees. She’s run to the living room and pulled the gun she keeps strapped to the underside. “I’ll go to the DEO—”

“No, you’re my backup. Follow me to the apartment. Call on the way.”

Alex nods. There’s been little alien activity over the last few weeks so it’s likely to be a human danger. And Alex Danvers is a match for any human.

Kara doesn’t even have to think about flying—she throws herself out the window, knowing that her powers are back, and she zips between the buildings, dives through the conveniently open window, opening her sense to locate her people.

Carter—standing in the middle of the living room, watch open. Cat—in her study.

“What’s wrong?” she asks Carter urgently. She storms through the apartment, opens all the doors, and she must be making too much noise because Cat comes out of her study, glasses on her nose, and frowns at her son.

“Carter, what—Kara? What are you doing here? You have your powers!”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong Cat? The tone—” she asks again, starts to say, and the answer occurs to Cat and Kara at the same time. They round on Carter. “Turn it off,” Kara orders him. Carter clicks his watch closed and gulps. She raises a hand to her ear. “Alex. False alarm.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. You can tell them to stand down.”

“You need me still?”

She considers that for a moment—she hasn’t really been without Alex for most of the last two weeks and for a moment she wants to say yes please I can’t do this but then she sighs. “No.”

“Call me when you’re done. Glad you're back in action.”

She meets Cat’s eyes and gives her the barest nod, makes her way into Cat’s study to pour a drink with shaking hands and tries not to listen as Cat scolds her son.

“Carter, you can’t just use that whenever you feel like it. Did you see her face? You terrified her!”

“We hadn’t seen her in two weeks, mom.”

“For reasons.”

“Really? For reasons? That’s not an answer.”

“You’re right,” Cat concedes. “I don’t know the reasons yet but I do know that you still shouldn’t have used that. You could have called her if you wanted to talk to her.”

“She could’ve called us too!” He sounds righteous. He sounds upset. Kara’s heart fractures a little. Carter doesn’t sound fine—Cat had told her he was fine and she hadn’t been lying and her heart fractures a little more when she thinks that maybe Cat hadn’t known that Carter was so upset either.

“Carter, what is this about?”

“She said she loved me. And then she doesn’t come see us? Maybe she deserves to be scared.”

“Carter!” Kara knows that tone from when she and Alex had misbehaved as children and she expects to hear him being grounded or sent to her room. She cocks her head to the side and sinks into the office couch to listen more closely—beneath their arguing, she can hear the young, worried thump of Carter’s heart and the more mature pace of Cat’s, a faint tremor of worry underlining it too. “Do you mean that? You’re hurt so you want to hurt her too?”

“Maybe.”

“Yes or no?”

“No. No,” he says softly. “I just…You want to see her too and I know you miss her. I just wanted her to see us and it’s obvious she only comes when we’re in danger and”

“Oh Carter.” Kara hears the whisper of cloth, knows that Cat has crouched next to him. Or maybe they’re sitting. She closes her eyes and turns away to not use her x-ray vision—just because she can’t block out their voices doesn’t mean she won’t try to give them privacy. “That’s not true,  sweetheart. She’s been hurt.”

“She looks fine to me,” Carter says stubbornly, and Kara huffs a laugh because she can just imagine his pout, his suspicious glance at his mother.

“I saw her today.”

“You did?”

“Yes. I was sitting at work and I, I wanted so desperately to know why she was ignoring us.”

“You feel like this too!” Carter says, relieved, mostly, and still so very upset.

“Yes, Carter. I was angry and hurt. But when I got there, she didn’t have her powers. She was under house arrest—you know how clumsy she is, darling, she’s a danger to herself and the rest of the world as a human. She had a bandaid on every finger bar one.” Carter laughs a little and Cat runs a hand through his hair. “I know it can be hard when you’re hurting, but sometimes there are very good reasons for the way people act. I trust that Kara was doing the right thing for herself. Can you trust that?”

“Yes,” Carter says, very quietly.

“You’re allowed to be hurt, you’re allowed to feel that sweetheart, but when you feel like that I want you to talk to me. Or someone else, if you feel like you can’t talk to me. I understand why you felt like this was the right thing to do. You were hurt and angry, but that doesn’t mean that you can scare her like that.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You’ll find there are many things even your wonderful brain won’t understand, Carter.”

“Mom, don’t try and placate me. She didn’t try to come to us, she didn’t try and call me.” He tries to hide a sniff but Kara hears it. She blinks back tears when she hears the kiss Cat presses to his forehead, the soothing way she cards her fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t she try? If I was hurt, I would want to be with you.”

“Yes. But she was with people who she trusted to look after her.”

“She doesn’t trust us?” Carter asks her.

Cat hesitates. “That’s not what I meant. Kara is different to us.”

“Because she’s an alien.”

“Yes, dear.”

“You’re saying she has different needs,” he realises.

“Yes. Exactly. And she has a family of her own. I think maybe she needed to be with them for a little while. To get better.”

“Because she got hurt.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Now, I can’t tell you what to do—or, I could, but you’re in those precocious teenage years, aren’t you?” Carter huffs and Cat laughs. “I won’t tell you what to do. Think about it for a little while and then we’ll talk about the consequences tomorrow after I’ve spoken with Kara. Alright?”

“Yeah. Alright.”

“Good.” He stands and starts off towards his room. “Carter?”

“Yes?”

“For what it’s worth, I know Kara loves you. As soon as she saw me, you’re the first person she asked after.”

“Really?”

“Really. There are demands on her that we can’t possibly understand. I’m not saying she acted perfectly either, darling, but I do think there are things she has to do that we have no idea about. She’s a hero—a certain modicum of secrecy is necessary.”

“Right. Kara. Secret.”

“Yes, well, no doubt that’s another reason why she was under house arrest.”

Carter laughs and he’s almost at his bedroom when he says, “Do you think she’s angry with me?”

Kara respects the way Cat always thinks about what she tells him. She doesn’t have to think about this. Instantly, she says, “No. She’s not angry with you.” She thinks about the rest of her answer though before she continues, “I do think she was scared. That you were in danger.”

“Oh. Because she loves me?”

“Yes, darling.”

“Okay.” His bedroom door creaks a little. “I’m going to think about that. Can I talk to her tomorrow?”

“I’m sure she’ll try and make sure to speak with you.”

“Okay. G’dnight.”

“Goodnight, Carter. Sleep well.”

Cat stands outside his bedroom for a little while and Kara’s nerves jump up a notch with every quiet step she takes back to her study.

Finally, the door opens, and Kara looks up.

“How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it,” Kara admits softly.

Cat nods, a little distant as though enforcing that in her memory. “I hadn’t noticed. He’s been a little on edge but I thought that was because of the whole affair, and the bomb. We’re looking for a new school. He isn’t comfortable being in the auditorium anymore, or the science room.” Kara nods, sad but not surprised. She can’t imagine what it must be like for him—for all of them—to have been controlled. Alex told her that it was as though she was there but not there, that she could see and hear and understand everything that was going on but she didn’t care that she was doing horrible things. She can imagine how terrifying that must be for Carter, who’s aware that his brain is already different from other kids. “If I had known that he was upset about you, I would have contacted you much sooner.”

“Me too. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I never meant to abandon him,” she tells Cat fiercely. “I tried to talk to all of you, I did. And you said that if I wanted to I could have left but you don’t understand, I had an agent on me at all times. I can barely do a sit-up as a human let alone take down a trained operative, and I gave messages to James and Winn and Alex but,”

“You did?”

“You never got them?”

“I got the courtesy “she’s alive” and then nothing.”

“Oh.” Kara’s face falls. “I’m—if I had known, Cat, I would never have let them get away with it, I would've insisted,”

“And your phone? Computer?”

“I broke my phone when I fell. And my computer is at work.”

“I see.” Cat glances down to the glass in her hands. “I see you’ve helped yourself to my bar.” Kara smiles. “Pour me one? Whiskey.” It’s in her hands before she can finish the word and she shakes her head. “God, you’re useful sometimes.” She takes a long pull from the glass and then sets it down on the corner of her desk, sits in the chair next to Kara. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“I didn’t know he would do that.”

“It’s fine.”

“I meant to give you time,”

“Cat, it’s fine.”

“You know what you want to say, then?” Cat asks her and she reaches out for her glass again.

“Not really. But I’ve never really been one for making plans.” Cat acknowledges that with a tilt of her glass in Kara’s direction. Kara takes it as a cue to start, too, and she suddenly realises that maybe for a girl like her, a girl without Cat’s experience as a person, as a person in relationships, as a person whose mission whose life has been all about writing about words, maybe she should have planned something. “I,” she says, and gives Cat a half smile, trying to hide the panic. What she wants to say could be so easily misconstrued and she doesn’t want that but she thinks if she just blurts it all out then it will be so she needs to build this properly.

So she talks. And tries to make herself understood.

“I lose control, sometimes. I get overwhelmed. And Alex, Alex has like ten gun analogies for what I do. I do off half-cocked or I go in guns blazing. Something like that.” Kara grips at her cape. “What it means, in the end, is that I can be reckless with myself and, and with some of the choices I make. The, the things that I say.” She peeks a look at Cat. Face impassively curious.

“I hear a lot. And I feel,” Kara lets her filters down for a moment and shivers—it’s cool in Cat’s apartment and the glass in her hand is smooth—seductively smooth, Kara wants to describe it, with a curve that never ends and the minor imperfections are so obvious to her questing fingers and her eyes and they’re beautiful and it’s beautifully crafted despite or maybe because of these fascinating tiny burst bubbles of heat trapped in the glass, the faint faint warps, and she gets lost in it until Cat says,

“Kara,”

very soft, guiding her back.

Kara gives Cat that small, abashed smile. She places the glass to the side and wraps her hands in her cape she tugs over her lap.

"You told me you were scared. Well, I get scared too sometimes.” Kara lets the words slip out between them. In another conversation, with another person, these are words that Kara might have blurted out thoughtlessly. Blushes, stammered to explain herself.

But Cat sits still and with a tilt of her head she demands the truth—with an open window, a bottle of whiskey, and in a room with little history for them, where they both feel safe, there is just Cat, asking for the truth, and giving Kara all the time she needs to figure it out.

“I…” Kara shakes her head. That hadn't been the right start either. 

She wonders how Clark made this decision, how he had this talk with Lois.

“I was saying," she clears her throat, she tries again, "I feel a lot. And that would be fine, except that I can crush a block of cement between two fingers. And for as long as I can remember, whenever it gets too much I have to use up these feelings or, or shut them down. For years, I shut them down.” She reaches up for glasses that aren’t there and look at Cat meaningfully. “Lead lined. For vision, mostly. Hearing too.”

Cat nods. She looks utterly content to listen—content isn’t the right word, Kara thinks, taking in Cat’s reserved posture and clear eyes. She’s ready—determined—to listen, to draw every last word out of Kara, to reserve judgement until the final note settles. Kara swallows hard. Cat—a renowned writer in her own right, more than CEO she’s a journalist first and foremost—is going to pick her apart with sharp eyes and not a single word and Kara is going to let her.

It’s the worst possible decision where Supergirl is concerned, Alex would tell her.

But she’s not just Supergirl with Cat.

So she continues.

“Ever since I came out as Supergirl, I’ve been feeling more again. I don’t have to ignore when someone is hurting—I can help. And it’s wonderful,” Kara breathes. "But I hear so much more pain now and sometimes it feels like it never ends. I do my best and it helps when I have an enemy to focus on. Something I can actually do.” Kara hesitates. “There are other feelings I,” she shakes her head. “I just shut them down. And it’s not good because sooner or later they come to light and it’s always harder to deal with. Self doubt,” she gives Cat at the hint of a raised eyebrow. “I took it out on James, though he kind of deserved it.” Kara crinkles her nose, still the tiniest bit annoyed. “He didn’t believe in me, that I could be a hero in my own right and I yelled at him.”

The tiny breath Cat lets out is a scoff—Kara knows it is and she frowns. “I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal but we both had to work on trust. And Alex, we used to keep secrets from each other. Big secrets. Secrets we probably haven’t fully dealt with. And sometimes I’m so angry,” Kara says quietly, looking down at her hands in fists and she grips her cape instead. “I have all this power and I could do something about it and I’m scared because I know what kind of person I would be if I ever gave into that.”

She sighs.

Cat waits.

Kara picks out the light of a warm star and lets the familiarity of it—small, round, a little tender orb—settle her. Centre her.

“Sometimes, I’m not sure what I’m feeling.” Kara peers over at Cat, who seems to understand that what comes next is about her. “Just that it’s overwhelming and I know that it isn’t bad.” She gnaws on her lip for a moment. “You held onto me for hours,” she whispers and Cat’s eyes widen instantly. “I’ve always—you’ve never been just my boss. I’ve always admired you so much and I’ve always wanted to help you, to help you work yeah but to help you. And every time you pushed me harder, I wanted to succeed to prove to you that I could. Prove that your faith in me wasn’t unfounded. I wanted to see those glimpses of respect.” Kara tilts her head, her lips pull up into a small smile. Nervous. “Did I imagine them?”

Cat’s fingers slide down the stem of her wine glass. She shakes her head no. “You didn’t imagine them. You’ve always impressed me. Even before Supergirl.”

“Except when I brought you a burrito,” Kara grins. Her smile falls away when Cat doesn’t smile, just looks over her appraisingly. Cat isn’t going to let her break the moment with some half hearted joke, it seems, and Kara looks down at her hands again.

“You have always been exceptional,” Cat tells her, and Kara feels warm all over. “It’s more obvious now, in part because you are accepting it and it’s hard to hide, especially for someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“Guileless. Frankly, a terrible liar.”

Kara rolls her eyes and doesn’t miss the smile Cat allows herself, behind her wine glass as she sips.

“There are worse things to be.”

“Mm.” Cat lifts her shoulders a touch, inclines her head in a fraction of a nod.

“But.” Kara’s breath catches and she draws on everything she has, everything she is, not to waver now. “I haven’t been honest with you. And I’ve avoided you and…hurt you,” she says, and peeks up from under her lashes to check. Cat goes very still and Kara’s heart pangs. She did. She hurt Cat. “I’m not telling you this to, to gain your forgiveness or anything like that,” she prefaces. “I’m telling you this because you deserve to know all the facts. And because I want to tell you. And because I hurt you when I avoided you and I don’t want to do that anymore. Hurt you.” She throws her shoulders back and, with a deep breath, lifts her chin.

“Kara,” Cat blurts out. “Don’t. Not unless you actually want to.”

Kara pauses. Softens when she realises that she must have looked like she was throwing herself into battle. She nods and stands, throws her cape off. She zips into Cat’s room and pulls out some leggings that might fit and a shirt and takes off her supersuit, all in seconds. When Cat blinks, the suit is discarded messily on the floor and Kara is sitting again. She's dragged the chair close—still an arms length away but much closer than before.

“I borrowed some clothes.”

“I see that.”

“I didn’t want to say it while I was,” Kara twists her mouth thoughtfully. “Her,” she settles on. “Supergirl is a part of me but she’s not me and she’s not who I am with you, always. And I said earlier, no pretence.”

“I recall,” Cat nods.

“Okay. No pretence. Just you and me." She sits up, swallows. She's not scared—she's very scared—but this feels right. "What I said to you, on the balcony,” Kara says, and Cat’s eyes shift from cooly interested to blazing because it’s happening. “What I said then and what I want to say now—and I do want to Cat—is that, I, I told you that I loved you. When we were on the balcony. That’s what I said.”

The words sit between them, too far out to be taken back, waiting for Cat to look them over and accept or reject them.

“I know,” Cat tells her. “I didn’t know the words, exactly, but I did know the meaning."

“You did?”

Cat nods. “And I… I would like to think that means something too.”

“I,” Kara nods slowly. “I think so. I think,” she is well aware of how romantic an idea it is that she’s about to present but the light is low and the taste of whiskey is on her lips and tongue and Cat is lounging in her chair and telling her she knows that Kara loves her, and a surge of bravery loosens her tongue. “I think that people in love know the words however they’re said.”

Cat smirks—she knows what Kara thought, she’s think it too. They are sensible people not prone to romantic ideas like that, not the grand, not the forever ideas. They are the people who are too big for love like that, people who are prone to losing love, losing love like the ordinary people get to have grand adventures in small lives—they live big adventures, more blood than anything, more fear than hope, and a balance that feels ever shifting towards more loses than victories.

“Love.” She shakes her head. “Another reason I stayed away. Can you really imagine it working between us?”

“I’ve imagined it a hundred times,” Kara says. “I can’t stop imagining it.” Cat doesn’t reply to that. “I think we deserve it enough to try. I want it,” she presses on, and she stands and takes the glass out of Cat’s hand and kneels next to her chair. “I want it more than anything.”

“Anything?”

Kara hesitates. “I want it more than I wanted to save the world,” she whispers, and Cat’s eyes flash.

“You know how attracted I am to power,” Cat murmurs, and smirks, and Kara shakes her head.

“Please, don’t deflect like that. Just tell me. Please.”

Cat frowns down at her and it never occurs to Kara that it could be a rejection—it isn’t, she can feel the answer already, feel it thrumming between them—and eventually Cat nods, closes her eyes, nods again.

“You aren’t alone,” she tells her, tone heavy with all the multitudes of what that means—a planet, a home, a family, a partner, a love. More.

There isn’t long enough between villains—there never is a long enough time between the fights, but there is long enough for them to know that they have each other, there is long enough for Carter to settle again, for Alex to meet Cat and Carter as her sister instead of an agent, for Eliza to hear about Cat even if they don’t have a family dinner quite yet. There is long enough for Kara to have her promotion, for her to tell her friends.

There will be time enough after the next fight for more.

She makes her way into Cat’s office, stares at the sky that darkens with the newest threat and she turns to her. “Sorry about the update meeting, I guess it’ll have to be delayed. I have a world to save,” she grins. Cat rolls her eyes.

“The world can just wait a damn minute then!” She grabs the collar of Kara’s suit and tugs her closer. It takes everything inside her not to demand that Kara come back, come home. It’s all she wants. But it isn’t fair. “Thank you, Supergirl,” is what she ends up saying, and she curls a hand around the back of her neck and kisses her firmly. “Go save the world.”

Kara nods. Steps away.

“Cat? Can I ask you a question?”

“For you, Supergirl, anything you want.”

“Can Idris Elba do this?” Kara asks, eyes twinkling, and she flings herself out the window and shoots up into the sky, the air cracking in a loud boom around her.